


You've Got Red On You

by Cantique



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantique/pseuds/Cantique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen's had a recurring theme of Mages and the color Red. | Oneshot kind of cute drabble thing I guess?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got Red On You

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what I'm doing anymore but I knocked this out in like an hour.

Solona Amell, the most beautiful woman in the circle – in his opinion, anyway. She was his age, give or take a year, as pale as most of the Circle Mages, with hair the same colour as rust and amber. She was also one of the most troublesome of the apprentices. “Redheads,” the Templars would mutter under their breath whenever she was escorted to the Head Enchanter's study after casting a layer of ice on the walkways, or setting fire to someone's britches, or stealing extra desserts.

Cullen found her behaviour enticing, despite his best efforts not to. The Head Enchanter often accused her of playing up for attention. If attention was what she was after, it was working, because she had his entirely. They could rarely speak comfortably, but they found ways over time to communicate otherwise. He snuck her an extra serving of dessert one night after she'd cast a particularly funny spell that left one of the other Templars in a room full of Magi in nothing but his underwear. That was the beginning of it. Her pranks quickly became a regularity on his shifts, keeping him awake and entertained during the longer patrols. She'd come back to her quarters after her classes to find small gifts from the outside world under her pillow – trinkets, flowers, that sort of thing.

Eventually, she developed a smile reserved entirely for him, one where her eyes would lock with his and an eyebrow would lift. One of the others noticed it once. “Look out, Rutherford,” the Templar had chuckled, nudging him and speaking below his breath so as not to be heard. “The redheads are always trouble.” He'd quickly denied any implications of the sort, though. It was not unheard of for Magi and Templars to become lovers in secret, but the consequences were too horrendous for him to so much as consider risking it. Banishment, imprisonment, death, Tranquillity – the last one especially frightened him. Over time, the thought of anything happening to her scared him, but Tranquility would remove the spark from him that he had loved so much.

None of that would matter, though. He could never have her, if she would even _want_ him in the first place. She was a flickering flame in the darkness and shadows of that dim tower, and he was no more than another face in armour. When the time came for her Harrowing, he'd volunteered to watch over her. He wouldn't have wanted anyone else to do it, if it had come to that, Maker forbid. She spoke to him afterwards and he was so nervous to have such a free moment with her that he stuttered all the way through it – yet somehow, she still offered to sneak away with him. Cullen was surprised with how forward she was, so surprised that he _ran away._ He'd spent the rest of the day in his quarters, mulling over it. Would he be able to work up the courage to talk to her again? Would he accept her offer or uphold his oath? He wasn't sure how to go about either, and the situations that played out in his mind all seemed to require him to be much more confident and charismatic than he actually was.

As suddenly as she'd declared herself to him, however, she was gone. Vanished in the midst of the chaos of her _idiot_ friend Jowan. She'd been recruited by the Grey Wardens, thank the Maker. He'd known what would have awaited her if she hadn't been whisked away. The thought of seeing her as a Tranquil was worse than knowing she was gone forever.

The next time she appeared was in flames, like a vision before him in the broken Circle, the demons around her vanquished with a mere wave of her staff. She was a vision – her hair was down now, tumbling past her shoulders and no longer restricted by the Circle's harsh grooming codes. Gone were the apprentice robes she was once restricted to, her body now encased in armor that was splattered with blood and whatever it was that spilled from demons. She was so beautiful, more beautiful than he could have ever imagined, and she reached out to him and spoke his name. She was perfect, and she was so perfect that he thought she was no more than the work of a demon trying to corrupt him with the one thing he'd wanted and the one thing he could never have.

It had been the final straw for him, for a demon to reach so deep into his heart to toy with his mind. He cursed her, the same way he would a demon. He thought the pain in her expression was a convincing touch at the time, and only after she had saved him and the others in the Circle and vanished once more did he come to realize that she had been as real as his blade.

It was too late, though. By the time he'd found enough clarity to make sense of it all, they were calling her the Hero of Fereldon. He'd considered writing to her at the Royal Court before he was transferred elsewhere, but word circulated quite quickly that the King Alistair had taken his Magi adviser as a mistress. Some things were best left as they were.

 

* * *

 

He wasn't entirely firm on what had made him so uneasy about Hawke, but he was sure it was one of two things. She was the cousin of the Hero of Fereldon, and not only did she share the magical talents, but they were strikingly similar in appearance spare for her hair, which was a deep black and only served to bring out the second possible reason Cullen was always on edge around her: the way she painted her face. Not to say that she slathered herself in war paint the way the Qunari did, her paint was much more subtle. She smudged a stripe of red across the bridge of her nose, and what really took Cullen was the way it seemed to always match the red she adorned her lips with.

There were rumors about the stripe, of course, and they varied depending on who you asked. Some said the Champion began the practice when she was fighting through the Blight, trying to flee Fereldon with her family – this rumor was quickly followed by speculation that adorning one's face with Darkspawn blood would build some kind of immunity to the Blight sickness. Others say it was to help her sell her skills and abilities as a mercenary when she had first arrived in Kirkwall. The scarier you looked, the more work you'd find yourself offered in such a line of business. The most popular theory, however, was that she painted her face and lips with the blood of her enemies. Cullen had to admit to himself that he believed that she used the blood of those who had crossed her as lipstick, if not just a little bit.

Her personality certainly only helped to fuel the rumors, and Cullen often wondered if this was something she enjoyed or did on purpose. She was brash, almost reckless at times, taking a sort of twisted pleasure in the amount of trouble she seemed to find herself in at any given time. At first, this didn't really bother Cullen. In fact, he'd even found it a little endearing and found himself growing fond of her. That all changed when he learned she was associating with the infamous Anders, the Apostate who'd not only successfully made Cullen's job twice as hard as it needed to be, but also managed to leave pages and pages of poorly written manifestos almost _everywhere_ in his wake – pages that Cullen was forced to read and transcribe for Knight-Commander Meredith.

When it came to light that the two were romantically involved, Cullen found himself in a silent, private panic. It was one thing that the Champion of Kirkwall was an Apostate – while it bothered him that she was not confined to a Circle as she should be, he didn't question the amnesty she was provided. Even at his staunchest he couldn't deny that she had proven herself worthy of it. But her intimacy with Anders was cause for alarm. Cullen had seen his writings. He had read his theories and ideologies, which grew increasingly extreme in nature as time went on. At one point he'd even considered bringing it to the attention of the Knight-Commander that such an extremist threat had the powerful influence on Hawke that Anders did – but he gave up on the idea when he confronted her in private. “Anders is harmless,” she'd dismissed with a wave of her hand. “He says things in his manifestos, sure, but you don't know him like I do. Believe me, Knight-Captain, Anders is all bark and no bite... or at least it's a small bite, anyway. Nothing a few stitches and some healing magic couldn't fix,” she'd said with a wink before sauntering off.

His instincts had been right all along, though. Yet, even though the Chantry lay in rubble, lives lost and Kirkwall divided in two, Hawke defended the Apostate. Cullen felt he should have been infuriated with her, but when she realised what her lover had done, her eyes transformed into her cousin Solana's. Filled with hurt and betrayal and fear, Solana's eyes were all that he could see. Hawke knew perfectly well what this meant – she knew better than anyone there – and in that moment he realized if he could trust anyone, it was her.

They fought side by side that day, for the Mages. Cullen knew he'd face consequences for this, but part of him felt like he owed them this. At least this time. Hawke and Anders fled once it was all over, vanishing completely.

Not long after, so did the Hero of Fereldon.

 

* * *

 

“Hrnh,” The Iron Bull chuckled in the training yards, watching the Inquisitor completely _destroy_ a training dummy with magic that still, despite all his experience and trust in her, set off an alarm deep within Cullen's mind. The two watched as she moved to the next dummy, a soldier rushing in to quickly replace the destroyed one. She was testing her new discipline today. Rift Magic, they called it – manipulation of the Rift for her own benefit. This wasn't just sealing Fade Rifts as he'd seen her do before, but rather opening and controlling the Veil at her whim in battle. This had been the layman's terms she'd used to describe it to him, anyway.

She flexed her hands and in an instant, the training dummy was pulled to the ground with such a force that it gave a _thud_ on impact, almost becoming flat. It was as though the Inquisitor was manipulating gravity itself. Five years ago, Cullen would have been horrified by this kind of magic. But now? Well, he was still uneasy, but knowing it was in her hands was somewhat comforting. “ Oh, _that's_ the kind of thing that'll crush a man's skull,” the Qunari mused. “I like it.” He gave a side glance to Cullen, smirking, his arms crossing. “Redheads, right?”

Cullen gave a blink. “Sorry?”

Bull gestured to the Inquisitor, who was now content setting a new dummy on fire without the aid of her staff. “Redheads,” he repeated, as though it were obvious what he meant. It took him a moment to realize that Cullen needed more explanation than that. “There's something about women with red hair.Something...” he paused, a low growl in his throat, “...fierce. Like their hair is a warning to everyone else.”

Cullen glanced from the Qunari to the Inquisitor and back. He'd heard The Iron Bull talk about the Inquisitor before, often in ways that he found to be obscene in nature – even though the Inquisitor didn't seem to think anything of it – but this sounded oddly inspired. “I'm sure The Herald's hair color is just coincidence.”

“Think about it,” Bull began, shifting from one leg to another, eyes fixed on her as he spoke. “Can you think of a redhead who hasn't been a force? The Boss, your Spymaster – hell, I even hear the Hero of Fereldon was a redhead.”

Cullen fell silent for a moment as he considered this. “...She was, yes,” he admitted. It was odd, actually, how the Inquisitor and the Hero of Fereldon had so much potential to be similar yet were almost _nothing alike._ Both were Circle Mages, both from noble families, both with red hair. Where Amell had been mischievous and rebellious, though, Trevelyan was calm, reasonable and almost painfully dedicated to her work. Cullen had caught her asleep at the war table more than a few times now, and was finding himself concerned with how little she was resting.Unlike Hawke, it was entirely possible to discuss or even debate sensitive topics such as the fate of the Circle of Magi without it dissolving into shouting and name-calling, even though the Inquisitor believed that Mages should be self-governed. Hawke, however, was not a redhead, meaning that according to Bull's theory, she was just crazy. Cullen found himself undecided on if he agreed with that or not – it was entirely possible.

He also couldn't help but find himself constantly noticing her freckles, something neither Amell nor Hawke had. He thought they looked like sprinkles of cinnamon on top of a cup of sweet milk. ...Not that he'd ever share that with anyone.

“They're softer, too,” Bull added, taking Cullen off guard. “And most of them are this pale color, so you can see your hand prints on them almost immediately. I like that. Like a map with tits.”

The Commander cleared his throat, frowning and rolling his shoulders. “I don't believe it's appropriate to be saying such things about the _Herald of Andraste._ ” He shot Bull a glance, but realized that the Qunari was now staring right at him, grinning ear to ear.

“I didn't say anything about the Boss, Commander.” A silence followed, filled only by Bull's knowing grin. “I was just talkin' 'bout redheads. _You_ came to that conclusion.” Bull dropped his shoulders and turned, glancing to Cullen quickly. “If you're going to try the hand prints thing, give her some warning first. I doubt she'll be expecting that kind of thing from _you._ ” With that, he was gone, heading to the direction of the tavern and leaving Cullen to fight off his body's desire to turn bright red.

 


End file.
